The virtual 1951-58 Pittsburgh Pirates (Part 3: 1955-56)

So far, we’ve completedhalf of our eight-season journey of re-rebuilding the 1950s Pirates, testing ourselves to see if we can manage the task better than Branch Rickey. Our record in the first four years hasn’t been good, but we can take some solace in the fact that it hasn’t been remotely as bad as that of the actual Pirates:

1954-55 offseason: Actual Pirates deals we will make

Here’s what we had to say about this momentous draft pick in our previous series on Rickey’s Pirates:

Rickey made a selection in the Rule 5 draft of November 1954 that would prove to be the most successful in history, when he plucked Roberto Clemente from the Dodgers’ minor league system. But great as Clemente would eventually prove to be, in 1955 he was 20 years old with a grand total of 148 professional at-bats under his belt, and he wasn’t ready for full-time major league play.

Rickey well knew this, and lamented it in a scouting report he personally filed on his young prospect: “I do not believe he can possibly do a major league club any good in 1955. It is just too bad that he could not have had his first year in Class B or C league and then this year he might have profited greatly with a second year as a regular say in Class A.” But under the Rule 5 provisions Rickey was required to keep Clemente in the majors for all of 1955, or risk losing him.

Rule 5 will require us to keep Clemente in the majors in 1955, but it won’t require us to play this very green prospect as a first-stringer.

1954-55 offseason: Pirates deals we will invoke

Nov. 16, 1954: Traded outfielder-first baseman Ralph Kiner to the Cleveland Indians for pitcher Sam Jones, a player to be named later, and $60,000 cash. (On Nov. 30, 1954, the Indians sent outfielder Gale Wade to the Pirates, completing the deal.)

In actuality it was the Cubs making this deal. Unlike the transaction in which the Pirates had sent Kiner to Chicago in 1953, this one wasn’t just a sale dressed up to look like a trade. The 60 grand was a lot of money, to be sure, but in this exchange one of the players other than Kiner was a key talent as well.

Sam Jones had never made it in Cleveland, unable to force his way into the historically great starting staff the Indians featured in the early 1950s. The Indians gave him one chance, in 1952, and Jones bombed, as his control—always his vulnerability—failed him.

But it was only a 36-inning chance, hardly a comprehensive test of Jones’s ability. And in abundantly extensive minor league experience, Jones had been highly impressive. Pitching at the triple-A level in the full seasons of 1951, ’53, and ’54, and for part of ’52, Jones had compiled a won-lost record of 45-33 with a 3.22 ERA, racking up 566 strikeouts in 688 innings, leading his league in strikeouts once and placing second another time.

That’s the kind of arm we’ll have no hesitation about giving a front-line chance. Kiner had been a marvelous player for us, but he’s plainly in decline, and we won’t pass up this opportunity to take on the exceptionally hard-throwing Toothpick Sam.

We love Bernier’s gaudy tools, but he hasn’t been able to break into our starting lineup, and with Clemente on board in ’55 we won’t have room for a second right-handed batting backup outfielder. Pless is a 29-year-old career minor leaguer without Bernier’s upside, but he’s a decent ballplayer, a line-drive hitter who can play third, first, or corner outfield, and we do have a spot for him on our bench.

The Giants clearly had no plans to promote Pless to the majors, and it’s plausible that they’d take Bernier in exchange.

1954-55 offseason: Actual Pirates deals we will not make

The southpaw LaPalme had been up and down for the Pirates, stepping forward into the starting rotation with a solid year in 1953, and then falling back with a bad year in ’54. But it didn’t make sense to just dump him, as Rickey did here. Wade was a year older than LaPalme, was a right-hander, had been terrible in 1954, and met no Pittsburgh need. We’ll keep LaPalme on hand to compete for one of the left-hander roles on our staff.

1955 season: Pirates deals we will invoke

Landrith doesn’t excite us, and the journeyman Fitz Gerald had put together a surprisingly strong year with the bat in 1954.

But here’s the thing: Fitz Gerald batted right-handed, and Landrith batted left-handed. Fitz Gerald had been working in a platoon arrangement for us with lefty-hitting Joe Garagiola, but Garagiola, following the 1954 season, retired as a player at the age of 28 in order to pursue a career as a broadcaster. (No one will dispute that he made a wise move.) This left us without a left-handed-batting catcher.

Meanwhile, Cincinnati had spent the ’54 season with not just Landrith, but another lefty-swinging catcher, Ed Bailey, on their roster as well. Then on the final day of April, 1955, the Reds had traded their lone right-handed-batting catcher, Andy Seminick, to the Phillies in a package that returned yet a third left-handed-hitting catcher, Smoky Burgess.

Now, having a lefty-hitting catcher on your team is always a good idea, and having two is really nice. But having three, with no righties, is not such a great arrangement.

In reality, the Reds dealt with this issue by sending the abundantly talented Bailey to the minors, and acquiring a right-handed-batting journeyman, Matt Batts, to serve as their third catcher. We’re presenting them with a better solution here: Fitz Gerald is better than Batts, and Bailey is better than Landrith.

1955 season: Actual Pirates deals we will not make

We’d never acquired Gordon, who was part of the trade in which the actual Pirates sent Danny O’Connell to Milwaukee following the 1953 season.

1955 season results

The departure of Kiner creates a hole in the outfield, which we’ll opt to fill with a platoon of sophomore Jerry Lynch with Rule 5 rookie Clemente. Landrith will assume the catching role previously handled by Garagiola, and Fitz Gerald’s role will be taken by rookie Jack Shepard.

But the key change to our lineup is presented by the return from two years of military service by dynamic young shortstop Dick Groat. After signing him in 1952, we’d farmed the highly-touted prospect out for most of that season, but now we’ll give him the big league starting job, moving journeyman incumbent Dick Cole into a utility role.

For our offense, this is a season of fits and starts. Jerry Lynch nicely rises to his occasion, Dale Long improves splendidly, and Gus Bell sustains his star performance. But Grady Hatton regresses, neither of the catchers hit well, Frank Thomas suffers a bit of an off-year, and Danny O’Connell suffers a lot of an off-year.

The effect on our run production is net negative, as our team OPS+ of 84 is worst in the league.

But on the pitching mound the story is distinctly positive. Jones proves to be a force of nature, striking out everyone he doesn’t walk. But with a less spectacular approach, performing more effectively is young Bob Friend, finally achieving the breakthrough we’ve been waiting for. Friend leads the league in ERA, the first Pirate pitcher to achieve that feat since 1935. Another young right-hander, Vern Law, also takes a great stride forward, and together Jones, Friend and Law join our stalwart veteran Murry Dickson to provide our staff with four 200-inning hurlers, the first time that’s happened in Pittsburgh since 1927.

And there’s good news in the bullpen as well. Paul LaPalme rewards our retention of him by delivering a wonderful performance. Elroy Face returns from the minor leagues as a dramatically improved pitcher, featuring a heavy-sinking forkball and emerging as a strong reliever in his own right.

All this is the basis for a great staff, but we’re unable to get there because our second-line pitching is simply awful. Roger Bowman, who’d blossomed in 1954, implodes in ’55, and while no one expects Bonus Babies to play well, our Bonus Baby pitchers are amazingly bad.

Still, on the whole our pitching is league-average, the first time we’ve attained that status since undertaking this rebuilding project. This yields a Pythagorean record of 68-86, significantly better than the 55-99 mark posted by the actual 1955 Pirates, and the best we’ve managed in our five seasons—alas, it will most likely place us in seventh yet again, for the fifth consecutive year.

That’s frustrating. Yet it’s fair to say that if there’s such a thing as a “strong” seventh-place team, this would be it. We’re fewer than 10 wins shy of .500, fewer than 10 games behind fourth place. We haven’t yet reached a breatkthrough, but we do seem poised for one.

As we move forward in this scenario, we’ll be comparing our performance against that of a new Pittsburgh General Manager. Branch Rickey’s five-year contract expired following the 1955 season, and the Pirates replaced him with a 37-year-old rookie GM, Joe Brown (yes, he was the son of the comic actor).

1955-56 offseason: Pirates deals we will invoke

Actually it was the Cubs doing this. Pollet has generally done okay for us since being acquired way back in mid-1951, but his dreadful 1955 performance suggests that it’s time to say farewell.

1956 season: Actual Pirates deals we will make

April 27, 1956: Released pitcher Paul Martin.

I don’t know the story behind why the Pirates pulled the plug on this Bonus Baby less than a year after signing him, effectively wasting the bonus expense. But based on Martin’s 1955 stat line, all we’ll say is, “Hallelujah!”

Frank “Trader” Lane took over as general manager of the St. Louis Cardinals at the end of the 1955 season, and the following spring he engaged in some of his chronic wheeling-and-dealing with the Pirates. As with so many amid the flood of Lane transactions, neither of these made sense from the St. Louis perspective.

In the first deal, Lane straight-up exchanged a 29-year-old left-hander who’d had a pretty good year for St. Louis in 1955 for a 34-year-old right-hander who was looking about this close to washed up. And in the second, he swapped the 1955 National League Rookie of the Year for a 30-year-old all-too-well-traveled journeyman and a 23-year-old prospect who’d yet to establish himself as a major leaguer. Huh?

No doubt Joe Brown could scarcely believe his good fortune upon receiving these offers, and couldn’t say “yes” fast enough. As for us, we have neither Surkont nor Littlefield, so we can’t make these exact trades. But given that Lane would promptly re-deal both Surkont and Littlefield within a month’s time, it’s obvious that he wasn’t much interested in either one of them particularly; this was just the sort of trading-for-trading’s sake that Lane evidently felt compelled to perform.

So it’s entirely plausible that we could modify these exchanges into a form that would satisfy Lane. We’ll do this:

1956 season: Pirates deals we will invoke

Cole was a fine utility infielder, but we’re coming up against the roster cut-down deadline.* Given that the Bonus Baby rules require us to keep the O’Brienbrothers in the majors through at least mid-June of ’56, Cole will be squeezed out. Pendleton’s a handyman whom we can store in triple-A in case of emergency. This trade would actually be made in the spring of 1957.

Let’s break that one down. If we assume that Miller-and-Flowers was a fair exchange for Wehmeier—I’m not really sure I’d make that deal if I’m the Cardinals, but it’s within the realm of sensible—then that leaves a straight-up swap of Haddix-for-Dickson as the rest of it.

And that’s just nutty: it’s true that Haddix had endured something of an off-year in 1955, but he’d been a major star in 1953-54, he was still just 30 years old, and still among the elite pitchers in the league in strikeouts, strikeouts per inning, and strikeout-to-walk ratio. And it’s true that Dickson had been a reliable workhorse for a decade, but that was kind of the issue: he was now 39 years old.

And if Lane was convinced that Haddix was on the verge of a breakdown on the basis of his rather slow 1956 start—a 5.32 ERA in 24 innings—then what might he be thinking about Dickson’s status of a 5.09 ERA in 23 innings, and a single strikeout—that’s right, one strikeout in 23 innings pitched, against 12 walks—while Haddix had fanned 16?

It was, to repeat, just nutty.

We’ll be eager to surrender Dickson for Haddix, and hey, just to make sure, we’ll toss in a prospect who was putting up some decent stats in Triple-A, plus some cash as a sweetener. Pleasure doing business with you, Mr. Lane.

1956 season: Actual Pirates deals we will not make

May 28, 1956: Traded catcher Toby Atwell to the St. Louis Cardinals for a player to be named later and cash. (On Oct. 12, 1956, the Cardinals sent catcher Dick Rand to the Pirates, completing the deal.)

We have neither Ward nor Atwell, as both came to Pittsburgh as part of the Kiner deal in 1953 that we turned down.

June 23, 1956: Traded pitcher Jack McMahan and second baseman Curt Roberts to the Kansas City Athletics for second baseman Spook Jacobs.

We have no interest in Jacobs, and will choose to stick with our 23-year-old Rule 5 pick McMahan, and keep Roberts in the minors.

July 15, 1956: Signed pitcher Howie Pollet as a free agent.

We let this veteran go last fall, and see no reason to bring him back now.

1956 season results

Going into the season, one significant lineup change is at third base, where we’re giving rookie Gene Freese the opportunity to grab the first-string job. In the outfield, we’re now able to send last year’s Rule 5 rookie Roberto Clemente to the minor leagues to further his development. Plus, Jerry Lynch had stepped forward in 1955, but he’s out indefinitely with phlebitis in the right shoulder. This unsettles the picture, allowing room for rookies Lee Walls and Bob Skinner to compete for playing time.

When we acquire Virdon, it isn’t to fill an opening in center field, as Gus Bell is well-established there. We take Virdon simply because the offer is too good to pass up, and plan to work him as part of the outfield rotation.

Another rookie, right-handed pitcher Ron Kline, is our prime candidate to take the role of fifth starter/long reliever.

Virdon quickly demonstrates that he deserves an everyday spot, combining a red-hot bat with his superb defense. We eventually install him as the regular center fielder, shifting Bell to right.

Freese struggles with the bat, fails to hold the third base job, and is sent back to Triple-A. We fill that hole (as did the actual Pirates) by shifting 27-year-old Frank Thomas from the outfield to third base for the balance of the year, and Walls emerges as the primary left fielder.

When the dust settles, our offense is meaningfully improved over that of 1955. Yet the team OPS+ of 89, while no longer the league’s worst, remains below average.

But pitching had been our strong suit in 1955, and it’s even stronger this year. Kline proves to be a fine addition, and as Haddix replaces Dickson, we have five solid starters, with Friend emerging as a workhorse ace. Face matures into one of the league’s top firemen. Only two teams in the league present a better staff OPS+ than our 103, and no staff strikes out more than our total of 810.

It’s enough to render our Pirates a genuinely full-season competitive ball club. We aren’t good, but we aren’t bad either: our Pythag record of 76-78 will be enough to land us in fourth place, far ahead of the actual seventh-place Pirates. It’s far and away the best season we’ve enjoyed in our six-year scenario, and the best season for any Pirate team since 1948.

It isn’t a dramatic breakthrough, but there can be no denying that it is a breakthrough. We’re no longer a tail-ender.

And we’re a young team, with lots of players still developing and improving.

Next time

We’ll find out just how good we might be able to become.

References & Resources* Unlike current-day rules, which require each team to cut down to a 25-man active major league roster as of Opening Day, in this period the rules allowed teams to carry up to 28 players for the first 31 days following their first game. Thus the final “cut-down day” took place in mid-May, and is the explanation for countless releases, waiver claims, and other transactions that occurred in the early weeks of May in the 1940s/50s.